We risk our reputation and we only do that, if we are smart, for real talent. The trick is knowing who and when that is and who and where to send that person - a sort of match-making that can be successful. You can’t just do favors to “be nice’ no matter how well-intentioned, not when your reputation is riding on it. But here, we can gain.
The bottom line: use the sites that you can to further your reputation. Don’t expect compensation here, but use it to gain compensation and authority elsewhere. And if you find a site that does pay or if you are one and you read this, email me. Contact me. I’m certainly interested.
Thanks for reading.
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
I addressed this, partly and not quite so extensively several months back.
Basically there are a lot more consumers than creators.
There are even fewer .....
Well, I was going to say there are even fewer quality creators but I guess the market would ultimately judge that. Sort of. Kind of.
There's a lot of people who think they have something interesting to say, and fewer who do.
Still, in the meantime, the good is drowned by the junk. Still further in the meantime, the need for paid content is logarithmically diminished. And the freelance compensation goes down.
There are reasons - often to do with livelihood - why the idea of prestige is one best kept around. The quality of work demanded in print is also a factor.
[typos fixed - to terrible even for me to swallow]
2 - Eric Olsen
HI Sadi, very nice, persuasive post and I appreciate the special dispensation and spectacularly kind words for us!!
Yes, this is certainly an issue of concern and even alarm for real writers.
I was just talking to Natalie Davis about this yesterday, who is an excellent, experienced writer and editor who is having a very difficult time making a living in the new writers' economy, largely created by the Internet.
Temple is correct about the devaluation and it's hard to say exactly how the problem will be rectified beyond the boring, underpaying advertising-and-affiliate model. Something is missing - there is some way to make all of this work that no one has come up with yet.
3 - sadi
i think this will ultimately pay out by allowing writers several things instead of instant compensation:
1. write good stuff and think toward compiling those articles for a book project or an antholgy that is taking submissions.
2. use these writings as tear sheets when applying for new jobs or a promotion etc, as this kind of exposure and number of web hits lends you a legitimacy and authority that you may not otherwise have.
3. develop an expertise, as i sort of fell into, and b ecome THE authority on that subject on the Web and then start to try to get radio bookings or make it clear to television programs, new media and paying outlets that you are available to write about this issue for them,
&
4. if you do become an expert and a primary reference (your site, for example, gets thousands of hits per day), then you have a legitmacy right there that will help you get a real literary agent.
so there is compensation at the end, i believe. you just have to think about how you are going to apply the work that you are doing now in the future.
and too, not all of this work IS for free. Some is paid, but for the work that is free, remember that in the final account, you can make it pay off...
just my opinion and thanks to RJ for a real interesting conversation about this topic as well... it helped me to think about my own views on the topic and get going on this piece as i said i would and ~ ta dah! ~ did.
Eric, of course ~~` not special dispensation, per se, just a logical statement to me that follows from what you do and our many discussions about that as well... speaking of...... ring me sometime...
cheers all, and thanks for reading my absurdly long works.
sade